The Signal (William Eubank, 2014): USA

Reviewed by Nadia Zetterberg. Viewed at the Antioch University’s Community Hall, Santa Barbara during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2015.

A young couple and their best friend go on a road trip to California. On their way there they make a stop in the middle of nowhere in the state of Nevada to find a mysterious person who has been stalking, contacting and infiltrating them through the internet, but instead of finding this hacker they end up being obducted to what appears to be a research facility.

Although at the first impression I really thought this movie was brilliant, after taking a couple hours to reflect on it I found a lot of things in the story were not connected or failed to be explained. In a movie I expect things to come around full circle, that was not the case with this movie. I feel like a lot of things were added to the story just to get a story going but were never explained. This added to a lot of confusion and I would actually say a lot of it was pointless.

The idea of this movie was brilliant and it could have been so much more than it was. It is an unusual story and it had potential to be so great, it was unlike anything I have ever seen before. But I was very disappointed when I left the screening and had so many questions going through my mind about the story.

Love and friendship are some of the themes in this movie, but also confusion and the fine line between what is real and what is supernatural. This movie is director William Eubank’s second movie ever. It was filmed during 21 days in Albuquerque.